Slovak PM meets Putin in rare visit by EU leader to Moscow

MADRID Dec. 23 () –

The Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico, met this Sunday with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, in a rare surprise visit by a leader of a member country of the European Union to Moscow, in which, according to said, they have addressed the supply of Russian gas to Slovakia.

Fico, who assured that “the highest representatives of the EU had been informed on Friday about his trip and its objective, explained that his meeting with Putin was due to the statements of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who said that he is against any transit of gas through Ukraine to Slovakia, according to a statement published on its profile on the social network Facebook.

“The Ukrainian president is also in favor of sanctions against the Russian nuclear program. These attitudes harm Slovakia economically and endanger the production of electricity at Slovakia’s nuclear power plants, which is unacceptable. Putin has confirmed Russia’s readiness to continue supplying gas to the West and Slovakia, which is practically impossible after January 1, 2025, given (Zelensky’s) attitude,” he explained.

Both leaders have “exchanged points of view on the military situation in Ukraine, the possibility of a soon peaceful end to the war and the mutual relations between Slovakia and the Russian Federation, which I intend to normalize,” concluded Fico, in the which was the first visit of a Slovak representative to Russia since the beginning of the Russian invasion more than two and a half years ago.

This week Zelensky described as “shameful” that Slovakia accuses the cost of interrupting the transit of Russian gas and oil through the Druzhba pipeline, which kyiv will close from January 2025 and which supplies Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic. , while Ukraine “loses people.”

The agreement on gas transit between Russia and Ukraine ends at the end of 2024, after kyiv has repeatedly refused to extend this agreement in the context of the Russian invasion, unleashed by order of Putin on February 24, 2022. Until To date, kyiv has largely guaranteed the operation of the pipeline despite the Russian invasion, although the Ukrainian government has already warned on several occasions that it would not renew the contract.